SULTANA

A queen she was

with her bright eyes

and a white smile

Always soft was her voice

and joyful

SHA HALEIK ( how are you?)

ADH CHLY (come in)

Whenever we passed by her street

Mom and I would always try

Knock at her door

And she would come down

To open greet us with her usual smile

Dressed in her silk Barakan

Indigenous garb in Libya

The attire befit of the

Tripolitanian Jewess

I loved that so, because

While the chatting was going on

I would sneak downstair

With joy anticipation to

Bang at the piano in semidarkness

Even though I was an aged upright

When I think today

But then it was real treat

To climb up that plunky bench

To rumble away some absurd tune

Some other times I would stay

Almost the entire day

The orange flower blooming

When season was to makeW

Z HAR & AT HAR

In late May

Around the timess when oranges

Blossoms, sacks of them

Would be distilled to make

Liquid clear to lift the spirit

With few drops

A treat in coffee, tea, or lemonade

Even in KAAK or in a SEFRA

Sultana my dear grandmother's sister

You were the closest I had

To Nonna Misah, in reality

Because she left Tripoli

To set sail to a new destiny

To Istrael in 1951

Sultana a giving and caring

In every way

You washed the dead,

When the passed away

Prepping for the world to come

you gave charity every possible way

A saint you were for what you did

And never told

Hashem took you like one

Straight to Olam HaBah

From right there, between the tombs

Of your dear ones, where you succumb

Surely you died like a saint

Leaving with us your bright doctrine

Still with me, mia zia Sultana

May you rest in peace.

Where there are no headstones

Or even a marker

All gone

The Mediterranean Sea breeze

Will tell none.

Zia Sultana was a saint of a woman, she did a special Mitsvah of washing the dead before burial, she died at the cemetery while washing graves, some say she was attacked.